ThreatFox: Cobalt Strike IOCs

Hunt Hypothesis

This detection rule identifies adversary activities involving Cobalt Strike’s command and control infrastructure, which attackers leverage to establish persistent access and facilitate lateral movement across compromised Azure environments. Proactively hunting for these indicators in Azure Sentinel is critical because early identification of Cobalt Strike beacons allows the SOC team to disrupt advanced post-exploitation phases before adversaries can exfiltrate sensitive data or escalate privileges.

IOC Summary

Malware Family: Cobalt Strike Total IOCs: 11 IOC Types: ip:port

Type	Value	Threat Type	First Seen	Confidence
ip:port	`81[.]70[.]97[.]147:80`	botnet_cc	2026-07-25	100%
ip:port	`81[.]70[.]97[.]147:8080`	botnet_cc	2026-07-25	100%
ip:port	`81[.]70[.]97[.]147:443`	botnet_cc	2026-07-25	100%
ip:port	`114[.]55[.]96[.]192:22`	botnet_cc	2026-07-25	100%
ip:port	`114[.]55[.]96[.]192:5003`	botnet_cc	2026-07-25	100%
ip:port	`114[.]132[.]89[.]132:3389`	botnet_cc	2026-07-25	100%
ip:port	`1[.]116[.]121[.]47:65530`	botnet_cc	2026-07-25	100%
ip:port	`114[.]55[.]96[.]192:8080`	botnet_cc	2026-07-25	100%
ip:port	`114[.]55[.]96[.]192:5000`	botnet_cc	2026-07-25	100%
ip:port	`114[.]55[.]96[.]192:443`	botnet_cc	2026-07-25	100%
ip:port	`182[.]92[.]117[.]223:1234`	botnet_cc	2026-07-25	100%

KQL: Ip Hunt

// Hunt for network connections to known malicious IPs
// Source: ThreatFox - Cobalt Strike
let malicious_ips = dynamic(["1.116.121.47", "81.70.97.147", "114.55.96.192", "182.92.117.223", "114.132.89.132"]);
CommonSecurityLog
| where DestinationIP in (malicious_ips) or SourceIP in (malicious_ips)
| project TimeGenerated, SourceIP, DestinationIP, DestinationPort, DeviceAction, Activity
| order by TimeGenerated desc

KQL: Ip Hunt Device

// Hunt in Defender for Endpoint network events
let malicious_ips = dynamic(["1.116.121.47", "81.70.97.147", "114.55.96.192", "182.92.117.223", "114.132.89.132"]);
DeviceNetworkEvents
| where RemoteIP in (malicious_ips)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, RemoteIP, RemotePort, InitiatingProcessFileName, ActionType
| order by Timestamp desc

Required Data Sources

Sentinel Table	Notes
`CommonSecurityLog`	Ensure this data connector is enabled
`DeviceNetworkEvents`	Ensure this data connector is enabled

References

ThreatFox — Cobalt Strike

False Positive Guidance

Here are 4 specific false positive scenarios for the ThreatFox: Cobalt Strike IOCs rule, including suggested filters or exclusions tailored to an enterprise environment:

Scenario: Legitimate IT Administration via PowerShell and Scheduled Tasks
- Context: System administrators frequently use powershell.exe to deploy scripts or manage configurations. When these scripts invoke the .NET runtime (often mimicking Cobalt Strike’s beacon behavior) or schedule recurring maintenance jobs using Windows Task Scheduler (schtasks.exe), they can trigger IOCs related to process creation and network connectivity patterns typical of Cobalt Strike beacons.
- Filter/Exclusion: Exclude alerts where the parent process is a known administrative account (e.g., DOMAIN\IT-Admins) running on specific management servers, or filter out events where the command line arguments contain standard maintenance keywords like /deploy, /update, or specific internal script paths.
Scenario: Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Agent Communication
- Context: Modern EDR solutions (such as CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, or SentinelOne) often utilize .NET-based agents that maintain persistent command-and-control channels with their management consoles. These agents frequently exhibit network traffic patterns, process trees, and registry modifications that closely resemble the IOCs defined for Cobalt Strike beacons.
- Filter/Exclusion: Create an exclusion list for known EDR agent executables (e.g., C:\Program Files\CrowdStrike\FalconSensor\csfalcon.exe or Microsoft Defender Antivirus Service) and exclude traffic originating from these processes connecting to known internal management IP ranges.
Scenario: Software Deployment via Configuration Management Tools
- Context: Enterprise environments often utilize tools like Microsoft SCCM (Configuration Manager), Ansible, or Puppet for software distribution. These tools execute deployment agents that may spawn